Ask The Bellwether

Spinner's Alphabet: What begins with E?

By Amelia © April 6, 2026

is for e-spinner. E-spinners have long existed, I remember when I was learning to spin in 2001, the Roberta Eortl was popular as a plying tool. In fact, the early e-spinners seemed to mostly be focused on making plying take minimal time. However, they were not all that friendly for spinning in groups as they were pretty loud. I made a hunt in the early 2000's for a quiet e-spinner and came across the Womack Butterfly. It was both gorgeous and quiet - yay! Then HansenCrafts showed up on the scene and since then e-spinners have really taken off. Theirs was whisper-quiet, light, and very portable with the addition of a small battery pack.

Learning to use an e-spinner for spinning is different from a wheel or spindle. So if you already spin but want to start on an e-spinner, don't be surprised that there is still a learning curve. The key difference is that an e-spinner twists at a constant speed, while you can vary the speed of your wheel or spindle almost without thinking of it.

There is now a rich variety of e-spinners; I'm a huge HansenCrafts fan - not only because I teach Zoom workshops through them, but also because the wood is lovely. See 3900? yeah. Amazing. (3900 is its serial number, printed on the underside.) That said, the 3-d printed or plastic molded ones have their place. The Electric Eel Wheels are affordable and you can 3-d print extra bobbins. The Daedalus line has a huge following. Ashford already had an e-spinner but redesigned theirs to fit in this new landscape; Louet now offers the Jenn-E e-spinner. And there are others out there... but please, avoid the cheap knock-offs on Amazon. If it's a no-name e-spinner likely it's not going to have good manners.

The same advice I offer wheel spinners I offer you: look for a second-hand one; the mark-down is not as significant as it can be with wheels, but you may save a little and should also be able to re-sell it if it turns out not to be your dream e-spinner. I have mine with HansenCrafts #3900 that's for sure!

Why Spin on an Electric Wheel? - shows my lovely Butterfly!
How do I choose the Speed Setting on my E-spinner? - featuring HansenCrafts #3, so early that they were not yet making the flyers!
There are several others as well, tangentially related: see these blog articles mentioning e-spinners

I'll leave you with two questions...

Do you have an e-spinner? Which one and what do you think of it (be kind!)?
What's your spinner's E?

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© April 6, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

How much ply twist is "balanced"?

By Amelia © March 30, 2026

Typically we tell new spinners to seek balance in their plied yarn ... see How Much Twist do I Need When I Ply? for that advice. If you let singles rest, the twist in the single is still there, but dormant. Don't wake it up before plying! Instead, keep a fresh ply-back from when the singles were spun to guide plying twist and realize that the dormant twist will show up when you wet-finish your skein after plying.

However, I would really like more specific advice. Some authors talk about counting treadles - clearly not spindle spinners!

What follows is from an old Ravelry post of mine:

"Mabel Ross’s theory, in Essentials of Yarn Design, is that ply twist is 2/3 singles’ twist. So, your final yarn has 8 TPI [twists per inch] in the 2-ply and each single has 4 TPI remaining in it. But why would two, skinnier, 4 TPI singles “balance” with an 8 TPI 2-ply? I know, 4 + 4 = 8, but does that hold true here, isn’t it more like 4 and 4 in parallel, not in series, pulling against 8? Clearly I’m thinking about this too hard, muddying my ability to understand what I’ve always taken as fact in my desire to get at its underpinnings.

"Alden Amos’s theory, in The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning, states that ply twist is 1/2 singles’ twist. I read that 10 times last night trying to figure out what he meant. Does he mean, once it’s plied, that your 2.5 TPI 2-ply has singles that each still contain 5 TPI? or that your 2.5 TPI 2-ply has singles that when not plied were 5 TPI? And do either of those things match up to Mabel Ross’s statements?

"Anne Fields (Spinning Wool: Beyond the Basics) quotes Mabel Ross, so she’s taking her numbers as a given. And Peter Teal (Wool Combing and Spinning, the original version) doesn’t really discuss balanced yarn, since he wants to be aware of what the twist is in his singles, and he wants there to be a certain amount, so he discusses plying twist in those terms."

End of quote

Well, that didn't really help. Especially the TPI of the single after plying - I want to know how much twist to put in the single and then how much twist I put in the ply.

These days, I do still use the freshly spun ply-back sample as a sample to match to when plying. And rather than TPI, I use twist angle to let me know what type of yarn I'm spinning. Medium knitting yarn wants a 25° angle of twist while durable sock yarn wants a 35-38° angle of twist. This is true no matter what my yarn diameter (WPI, wraps per inch) is.

If I don't have a sample, I can make one by folding a length in half and knotting the ends, being careful not to let any twist come out. Put it in warm water and the dormant twist wriggles the sample up to show what balance is in the 2-ply.

If I have no access to warm water, I can visually inspect the plying. When balanced, the fibers in the singles area straight, and the plied yarn is at maximum diameter. Before it's balanced, the singles are compressed and after the balance point, the plied yarn compresses.

You can find many posts on this blog about balance in plying if you'd like to dive into the topic further.

I may never get to the bottom of the singles-vs-plied twist question - but perhaps someone else will rig up an Alden Amos-style twist counter and then we'll all know. Will it be you?

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© March 30, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

Spinner's Alphabet: What begins with D?

By Amelia © March 23, 2026

is for Drafting Style. Do you draft woolen or worsted or something in-between? Woolen draft is a long-draw draft, usually to allow maximum air in the yarn. Worsted draft is a short-draw draft, pinched continuously to minimize air in the yarn. Both can be fast; both can be fun. Most folks are somewhere in-between in their drafting style.

Worsted drafting is easier to learn and what we typically learn when we start. You pull out about 1/3 the staple length of the fiber you are drafting, then slide your fingers over that so twist follows behind them. Pull-and-slide repeats to do the drafting. Oh yeah - "staple length" is the length of the individual fibers. So much vocabulary! This explanation also simplifies the overall process a bit - there is a drafting area sometimes called a drafting triangle though not all of us see the triangle where you are already attenuating (drafting down from original diameter) the fiber supply. That final 1/3 staple length length is at the front of the drafting area, closer to your spinning tool of choice, and is as fine as you need to have it to get the yarn diameter you want once twist enters it. One key features of worsted draft: twist is never in the drafting area; to make this happen, you maintain continuous squeezing with the forward hand, even when it's not pulling fiber out of the drafting area.

Woolen drafting is also called long draw - if it's two four letter words you know it's going to be challenging. This is an amazing draft, when well done the spinner looks like a ballerina swinging their arm gracefully away from their wheel and then toward to feed on the yarn. You can do this with two hands where the forward hand gates (squeezes and releases) the twist so you can draft against the twist in the yarn but limit how fast the twist enters; or with one hand, where you have to move your hand back, drafting out the fiber at the same speed twist is entering. With woolen drafting, it is the twist in the drafting area, and the speed that twist is entering it that controls the yarn diameter. So, you draft by pulling back and letting the twist keep the fiber in place. Your hands end up wayyyyy more than a staple length apart doing this, and if you are doing it with just one hand well, that hand ends up far away from your wheel/e-spinner/support spindle.

My default drafting method leans toward woolen - that's my go-to, but if the fiber is not cooperating I may end up doing shorter draws or what I like to call leap-frog drafting, where I do a short forward draft but don't maintain the squeeze. So when my hand leaps back to the end of the new drafting, I have to give a quick twist to remove twist from the drafting area - mimicing worsted's no-twist-in-the-drafting-area policy so that I can maintain yarn diameter. Yes, even on a suspended spindle - it's supported long-draw in that case since gravity would cause drafting to be far too quick.

Two questions for you to ponder ...

What's your drafting style? does it vary based on what you are spinning on?
What other D's come to mind for our spinning dictionary?

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© March 23, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

What do you spin Cotton on?

By Amelia © March 18, 2026

My e-trade industries improved book charka

I started spinning cotton on a Tahkli so I could spin cashmere — and quickly discovered two truths: cashmere is easier to spin than cotton, and I was hooked on cotton. I then mastered cotton on a charkha. But I had a friend who spun lovely cotton on her wheel, so I wanted to learn that. When I finally showed her a skein, she laughed: “Why did you bother with your wheel? You have a charkha — that’s the right tool for the job.”

I sometimes joke that spinning cotton is my tiny penance for Britain’s role in India’s history. Inspired by that, I watched a video of women assembling charkhas and demonstrating their amazing skill in producing Khadi cloth. I had my father and a friend build a similar charkha. My dream is a stage performance: assembling it, then spinning as the lights fade to black. It connects me to tradition, to my dad, and to the joy of cotton spinning — and I’m still chasing their slick no-stop wind-on — one day, I hope to catch it.

The Tahkli is the perfect spindle for cotton - its thin steel shaft gets great speed from a flick, and the weight of the disk keeps it spinning a long time. I usually carve the hook off my Tahklis so it's just a point - sometimes you can buy them that way. The hook just gets in my way, as I am not going to use the Tahkli suspended at all. It also forced me to learn long draw, as you twirl the spindle with one hand and draft with the other. It took a while! I spent evenings during a long hotel stay playing with the tahkli and various types of cotton. The one that clicked was the cotton/recycled blue jean blend. I was so thrilled to finally master this skill!

Then I moved on to a book charka - I loved the silliness of the book shape and had visions of tromp l'oeil painting it to look like some book - but what one? So it is still unpainted. My first one was from India, it was so much fun getting an international package! But it was fiddly, so I graduated to a Bosworth book charka - sweet! Reaching further I tried a Bosworth attache charka - but found it was so fast, I was overwhelmed. So I happily spin on my book charkas now. I did eventually get an improved book charka from e-trade industries in Inda - it is really much improved over the basic Indian book charka, though a step away from the quality of the Bosworth charkas.

But as I mentioned earlier, I felt I had to master cotton on the wheel. It was not as much fun as the Tahkli or charka, so when my friend made her comment, it gave me permission to return to those tools. I hold onto plans to spin naturally colored cotton for a hand towel kit I have, and plop the charka quill straight into the shuttle I have that fits it. We will see how I like that - usually I spin with end-feed shuttles.

What makes a charka so good for cotton? Speed. It is very easy with your hand turning the wheel to get up to speeds hard to achieve on a treadle wheel. E-spinners can keep up, though you may want a quill on your e-spinner to avoid the drag of tension on the cotton. I learned cotton well before e-spinners entered my life, though, and have not spent much time playing on my e-spinner with cotton. It's just such a delight to pull out my charka, so that's my go-to cotton tool, with a Tahkli tucked away for on-the-move cotton spinning.

What do you spin cotton on? Or, what has kept you from trying out cotton?

Spinners Alphabet: What Begins With C?

By Amelia © March 9, 2026

is for Cable, that crazy often tightly spun yarn where you overply a 2-ply. then ply it back on itself in what I like to call a cable ply, to bring it back into balance. So it's four strands and very tough. Then there's Chain Ply, a 3-ply construction made by making loops as you ply a single strand, like crochet chains. And Crepe yarn structure is like a hemi-cable, you "cable ply" an s-spun single against an overplied 2-ply.

For a great way to study yarn structures, see Sarah Anderson's Yarn Design for Handspinners (Amazon affiliate link - I may get a bit if you use this link). I carry the deck from the book around with me when I need to shake up my spinning and try new things. 80 different yarn structures, and then consider the impact of yarn diameter and color on them!

Fun fact: from the same single, the 3-ply and cable will have very similar WPIs. The cable will be more dense, making a great heel yarn for socks made from the 3-ply. A student gave me this nugget, and I've used it several times since. It works!

Other fun C's: combing and carding: combing is a worsted prep, carding is a woolen prep; crimp - the curvy wave in individual fibers, which can help you decide how thick or thin to spin it; and that leads me to Cormo, that lovely crimpy fine wool with a cotton-like feel - yum!

Do you have a fun fiber C to add to this? tell us all about it in the comments...

Postscript: I plan to post these every other week moving forward, more or less, making 2026 the year of the spinner's alphabet. This spinner's, anyway!

Pages

Spinner's Alphabet: What begins with E?

How much ply twist is "balanced"?

Spinner's Alphabet: What begins with D?

What do you spin Cotton on?

Spinners Alphabet: What Begins With C?